PAX East: 'West Of Loathing' Brings 'KOL' Style Into Western RPG

West of Loathing is a western, made in the same style as Kingdom of Loathing Asymmetric

Kingdom of Loathing is back! In Western form! West of Loathing takes all the comedic and art (or lack thereof) stylings of the popular browser-based MMO, and repackages it all as an RPG set in the wild, wild west.

Using a point and click interface, players create a character and set out into the strange world of West of Loathing. Like Kingdom of Loathing, your character must pick a class and can gain levels, gear and everything you’d expect from a regular RPG. Of course, quests often involve things like finding a man’s ghost horse or returning lost beer mugs to earn some extra meat (the currency of the world).

One huge difference compared to Kingdom of Loathing is that West of Loathing is actually animated. Well, somewhat. Using a Paper Mario 2D/3D-ish style, West of Loathing allows players to explore areas and move around while talking to NPCs and solving puzzles.

“It’s got new character classes and a whole new suite of skills. The combat is turn-based tactical now as opposed to the choice-based system before,” Kevin Simmons told iDigitalTimes at PAX East. Simmons is the producer, business manager, and a number of other job titles for developer Asymmetric. “Because it’s actually animated and has a soundtrack, we can do the things other adventure games do, like interact with the scenery.”

Simmons mentioned that the development of West of Loathing is actually partially thanks to Firewatch developer Campo Santo. “We share an office with the Campo Santo folks, and one day they said ‘why don’t you make a game using your existing Kingdom of Loathing assets?’” he said. “We said ‘yeah, why don’t we make a game with our existing assets?’”

Although the main quest of West of Loathing can be completed fairly quickly, the real meat of the game is in the sidequests and replaying the game with different choices. “If you wanted to be a super completionist, you could be spending twenty hours or so,” Simmons said.

“Each class has a different style, and you’re also making choices in the game right at the beginning like what partner you want to take with you, what horse you want to take with you. Those have impacts on how the game will play out,” Simmons said. “We’re not expecting anyone to see all the content in one playthrough.”

West of Loathing will be launching on Steam for Windows, Mac and Linux somewhere in mid-May to early June. The plan is for an iOS port to come about a month after the PC launch, and more platforms will be considered based on how the game performs. No price is currently set for West of Loathing.

So what do you think? Are you excited to explore a different part of the Loathing universe? Will you be playing on PC or mobile? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.